I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: The Fallen Legacies Page 8

  I turn to see Ivan emerging from the jungle. In the moonlight, I see a trickle of sweat roll down his cheek, his face contorted in a humorless smile.

  “Clever Adamus,” he sneers, “thought you’d get away with this.”

  He’s on to me.

  “With what?” I ask, stalling.

  I glance over my shoulder at the hut. There’s no movement inside, the sounds Ivan and I are making drowned out by the jungle. I’ll stop Ivan if I have to, but I hope it won’t come to that. Maybe I can still talk my way out of this.

  I walk back towards the edge of the clearing, standing inches away from Ivan.

  “Get out of here, Ivan,” I say, trying to sound as intimidating as possible.

  He snorts, disbelieving. “What? And let you try to steal all the glory? You’ll probably freeze up again.”

  And then I realize what dim-witted Ivan thinks I’m doing out here. He doesn’t think I’ve come to warn Hannu; such treason isn’t even a possibility to him. Ivan thinks I’ve come to capture or kill Hannu myself, just like he assumed I did with Number Two.

  “You didn’t even bring any weapons,” Ivan observes mockingly. “Are you going to talk the Loric to death?”

  He’s right. I came unarmed, hoping it would help convince Hannu to trust me. Also, I never intended to actually fight my people, only evade them. I hoped that violence could be avoided.

  With speed that surprises Ivan, I snake my hand forward and rip the dagger off his belt. His jaw drops when I hurl the weapon into the jungle.

  “Adamus,” he exclaims, sounding hurt, like a kid who’s had his favorite toy broken. “What the hell? You better help me look for that.”

  I grab Ivan by the front of his shirt and put my face in his. He’s surprised again, not used to being manhandled. I stare into his eyes, trying to reach him. I know it’s crazy, but Ivan used to be my best friend, despite everything. I have to believe that he’ll still listen to me.

  “Why do this?” I ask. “Killing them won’t heal our planet. It won’t lead to Mogadorian progress. It’ll only lead to more killing. More life wasted. Is that what you want?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Adamus?”

  He stares at me, dumbfounded. I shake him.

  “We don’t always get along,” I continue, “but you’re like a brother to me. You trust me, don’t you?”

  Mutely, Ivan nods his head.

  “Then trust me when I tell you that everything we’ve been told is wrong,” I say desperately. “Our cause is unjust, Ivan. We can change that. You can help me work towards—toward real Mogadorian progress.”

  I can see him trying to make sense of my words, confusion on his face. He looks away from me, over my shoulder, to the hut where Hannu and his Cêpan sleep. For a moment I allow myself to think that I’ve gotten through to him.

  Then he shoves me away. He’s finally realized what I’m up to, and it disgusts him.

  “I always knew you were weak, Adamus,” hisses Ivan, “but not a traitor too.”

  That settles it.

  I unclip the communicator from my belt and slam it into the side of Ivan’s face.

  CHAPTER 25

  I had hoped the blow would knock Ivan out. I should’ve known better.

  Ivan is back on his feet before I can create some distance between us. He doesn’t even register the trickle of blood from the cut I made above his eyebrow. That dead look I’ve seen in his eyes during a dozen training sessions comes on, and he’s barreling towards me.

  Ivan drives his shoulder into my stomach and lifts me, hurling me into a tree. The air explodes out of my lungs in a wet cough. Ivan grabs a handful of my hair and slams my head into the tree. Stars flash across my vision; I struggle to stay conscious.

  Desperately, I kick at Ivan, my shin connecting solidly with his groin. He doubles over, retching, and drops me.

  I stumble backward, into the jungle, shaking the cobwebs out of my head. Ivan is on me again before I have a chance to regroup, delivering a two-punch combination to my chest, followed by an uppercut that sends me tumbling over a fallen tree trunk. I scuttle backwards on my hands, running my tongue over the gap where my tooth used to be.

  “You can do better than that,” says One, sitting cross-legged on the tree trunk.

  “Shut up,” I mutter.

  Ivan leaps onto the tree trunk, standing above me. He points over his shoulder, a wild look in his eyes.

  “You want to fight me for them?” he snarls. “For some Loric trash? You’re choosing them over us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you can die with them!”

  Ivan jumps off the log, intending to stomp my face. I roll away at the last moment, kicking him in the side of the knee as he lands. I hear something snap inside Ivan’s leg, and he howls with pain.

  I scramble to my feet. Center myself, regain my balance. Ivan lunges towards me, now limping slightly, but this time I’m ready for him. I deflect his punches—all straight ahead, angrily telegraphed—using his own momentum and speed against him. It’s something I never tried in our sparring sessions, but it’s exactly what Hilde had been teaching Number One.

  Ivan comes at me again, frustrated, his blows more furious than ever. I duck under them and when he’s off balance, drive the heel of my hand into his nose. His feet go out from under him.

  I step down on Ivan’s throat, thinking of Number Two and the way he stepped on her neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see a flicker of light coming from the direction of Hannu’s hut. But maybe it’s just my imagination.

  “Not so easy when someone hits back, huh?” I say.

  Ivan shoves my foot away, but I catch his wrist in both of my hands. He pulls me to the ground and tries to climb on top of me. He punches wildly at me with his free hand, but I’m in control. I whip my legs up and slip one leg under his chin, the other behind his head, then pull down on his head with both of my hands, choking him.

  It takes a full minute for Ivan to lose consciousness, punching me in the ribs the whole time with decreasing force. When it’s over, I shove his body away, lying on my back. I’m hurting all over, but I’m alive.

  Around me, the jungle has grown eerily quiet.

  But then I hear the hiss of orders broadcast across the half-broken communicator discarded in the dirt a few feet away, and I know what’s coming.

  I’m too late.

  CHAPTER 26

  I manage to get to my feet and stagger towards the hut. I notice shadows lurking in the jungle around me, the scouts maintaining a perimeter.

  In the hut’s doorway, the crumpled body of a fifty-year-old man bleeds from a vicious sword wound. Hannu’s Cêpan. Dead like the other Cêpans. Which means they must have discovered the boy is Number Three.

  I feel like sinking to my knees, like giving up. I’ve thrown my entire life away tonight—I can never go home again; they’ll know me as a traitor. I’ll be spending the rest of my life running and hiding, hunted, just like the Garde. And for what? I didn’t even manage to help Hannu. I was too late, took too long fighting with Ivan. I’ve accomplished nothing.

  Suddenly the back wall of the hut explodes outward, splinters cascading in all directions. There is Hannu, alive, running—and running fast. Faster than humanly possible. He takes off before my people have a chance to close in, speeding towards the ravine.

  There’s still a chance.

  There’s no way that I can keep up with Hannu, but I run as fast as my body will allow, breath whistling painfully through my lungs. There are other pursuers nearby; I can hear them crashing through the jungle. Even with all the other scents in the jungle, I can still smell the acidic tang of piken breath as one charges towards the ravine. If I can only find a way to get to Hannu first, maybe I can still help him.

  The sound of rushing water grows louder. I don’t know how Hannu plans to cross the ravine. Maybe he’s strong enough to jump it. Maybe he knows some secret way down. It doesn’t matter, as long as he gets aw
ay. If he does, there is hope.

  I see Hannu’s silhouette nearing the edge of the ravine, maybe thirty yards from where I’m standing. There is a piken close on his heels. I’m afraid for him—he doesn’t have anywhere to go—but when Hannu reaches the edge of the ravine he jumps, landing safely on the other side. It’s a jump I could never make, and neither can the piken.

  He’s safe.

  Except: My father is waiting for him on the other side of the ravine. There is nothing more Hannu can do. The General grabs the boy and lifts him easily. He cuts a striking image, like a Mogadorian hero culled right from the Great Book.

  He hesitates for a moment, observing his prize, then tears what I know is the pendant from Hannu’s neck and stuffs it into his cloak.

  There’s no way across the ravine. I can only watch as my father laughs, then pulls his sword from its scabbard. Its glowing shaft pierces the night before he plunges it through Hannu’s chest and then drops him callously to the ground. He’s dead.

  One is screaming inside my head. Or is that me?

  The General stares across the ravine. For a moment, our eyes lock.

  I hear haggard footsteps approaching me from behind. I know what they mean, but I don’t turn to face them.

  My brief rebellion is at an end.

  “Good-bye, Adamus,” hisses Ivan as he slams both his hands into my back, shoving me over the edge of the ravine, towards the rocks and water below.

  CHAPTER 27

  The sun is warm on my face, in wonderful contrast to the cool saltiness of the ocean breeze. I relax back on my elbows and close my eyes. I turn my face up towards the sun, soaking in the California rays.

  When I open my eyes, One is sitting on the sand next to me. She is so beautiful. Her blond hair is loose, brushing lightly across her bare shoulders. This is wonderful. Such a pleasant sensation. I can’t ever remember feeling so content.

  Why does she look so stricken?

  “Adam,” she says, “you have to wake up.”

  “Wake up from what?” I ask, feeling not a care in the world.

  I reach out and take her hand. One doesn’t pull away; she just stares into my eyes with a pleading look.

  “You have to wake up,” she repeats.

  I feel a sudden chill. Somehow, my body is in two places at once. The other place is wet and cold. Painful. My body is tossed across rocks, buffeted endlessly by a forceful current. I can feel that some of my bones are broken, sharp pains slicing up and down my body.

  I push that reality aside. I try to focus on California.

  “Please, wake up,” One pleads.

  “But it’s so nice here.”

  “If you stay here, you’ll die.”

  When I open my mouth to respond, muddy river water spills out. I gasp for breath, choking, struggling. The current is strong, pulling me downward.

  But that doesn’t make sense. I’m on a beach in California. All the pain is somewhere else, happening to someone else. One looks so sad and desperate, I have to turn away.

  The sun is just beginning to set over the ocean, the sky turning orange and purple. Soon it will be dark, and I’ll be able to rest.

  “Wake up and fight,” begs One. “Please, Adam.”

  I don’t know if I can.

  See where it all began.

  CHAPTER ONE

  In the beginning there were nine of us. We left when we were young, almost too young to remember.

  Almost.

  I am told the ground shook, that the skies were full of light and explosions. We were in that two-week period of the year when both moons hang on opposite sides of the horizon. It was a time of celebration, and the explosions were at first mistaken for fireworks. They were not. It was warm, a soft wind blew in from off the water. I am always told the weather: it was warm. There was a soft wind. I’ve never understood why that matters.

  What I remember most vividly is the way my grandmother looked that day. She was frantic, and sad. There were tears in her eyes. My grandfather stood just over her shoulder. I remember the way his glasses gathered the light from the sky. There were hugs. There were words said by each of them. I don’t remember what they were. Nothing haunts me more.

  It took a year to get here. I was five when we arrived. We were to assimilate ourselves into the culture before returning to Lorien when it could again sustain life. The nine of us had to scatter, and go our own ways. For how long, nobody knew. We still don’t. None of them know where I am, and I don’t know where they are, or what they look like now. That is how we protect ourselves because of the charm that was placed upon us when we left, a charm guaranteeing that we can only be killed in the order of our numbers, so long as we stay apart. If we come together, then the charm is broken.

  When one of us is found and killed, a circular scar wraps around the right ankle of those still alive. And residing on our left ankle, formed when the Loric charm was first cast, is a small scar identical to the amulet each of us wears. The circular scars are another part of the charm. A warning system so that we know where we stand with each other, and so that we know when they’ll be coming for us next. The first scar came when I was nine years old. It woke me from my sleep, burning itself into my flesh. We were living in Arizona, in a small border town near Mexico. I woke screaming in the middle of the night, in agony, terrified as the scar seared itself into my flesh. It was the first sign that the Mogadorians had finally found us on Earth, and the first sign that we were in danger. Until the scar showed up, I had almost convinced myself that my memories were wrong, that what Henri told me was wrong. I wanted to be a normal kid living a normal life, but I knew then, beyond any doubt or discussion, that I wasn’t. We moved to Minnesota the next day.

  The second scar came when I was twelve. I was in school, in Colorado, participating in a spelling bee. As soon as the pain started I knew what was happening, what had happened to Number Two. The pain was excruciating, but bearable this time. I would have stayed on the stage, but the heat lit my sock on fire. The teacher who was conducting the bee sprayed me with a fire extinguisher and rushed me to the hospital. The doctor in the ER found the first scar and called the police. When Henri showed, they threatened to arrest him for child abuse. But because he hadn’t been anywhere near me when the second scar came, they had to let him go. We got in the car and drove away, this time to Maine. We left everything we had except for the Loric Chest that Henri brought along on every move. All twenty-one of them to date.

  The third scar appeared an hour ago. I was sitting on a pontoon boat. The boat belonged to the parents of the most popular kid at my school, and unbeknownst to them, he was having a party on it. I had never been invited to any of the parties at my school before. I had always, because I knew we might leave at any minute, kept to myself. But it had been quiet for two years. Henri hadn’t seen anything in the news that might lead the Mogadorians to one of us, or might alert us to them. So I made a couple friends. And one of them introduced me to the kid who was having the party. Everyone met at a dock. There were three coolers, some music, girls I had admired from afar but never spoken to, even though I wanted to. We pulled out from the dock and went half a mile into the Gulf of Mexico. I was sitting on the edge of the pontoon with my feet in the water, talking to a cute, dark-haired, blue-eyed girl named Tara, when I felt it coming. The water around my leg started boiling, and my lower leg started glowing where the scar was imbedding itself. The third of the Lorien symbols, the third warning. Tara started screaming and people started crowding around me. I knew there was no way to explain it. And I knew we would have to leave immediately.

  The stakes were higher now. They had found Number Three, wherever he or she was, and Number Three was dead. So I calmed Tara down and kissed her on the cheek and told her it was nice to meet her and that I hoped she had a long beautiful life. I dove off the side of the boat and started swimming, underwater the entire time, except for one breath about halfway there, as fast as I could until I reached the shore. I ran along the side
of the highway, just inside of the tree line, moving at speeds as fast as any of the cars. When I got home, Henri was at the bank of scanners and monitors that he used to research news around the world, and police activity in our area. He knew without me saying a word, though he did lift my soaking pants to see the scars.

  In the beginning we were a group of nine.

  Three are gone, dead.

  There are six of us left.

  They are hunting us, and they won’t stop until they’ve killed us all.

  I am Number Four.

  I know that I am next.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I stand in the middle of the drive and stare up at the house. It is light pink, almost like cake frosting, sitting ten feet above the ground on wooden stilts. A palm tree sways in the front. In the back of the house a pier extends twenty yards into the Gulf of Mexico. If the house were a mile to the south, the pier would be in the Atlantic Ocean.

  Henri walks out of the house carrying the last of the boxes, some of which were never unpacked from our last move. He locks the door, then leaves the keys in the mail slot beside it. It is two o’clock in the morning. He is wearing khaki shorts and a black polo. He is very tan, with an unshaven face that seems downcast. He is also sad to be leaving. He tosses the final boxes into the back of the truck with the rest of our things.

  “That’s it,” he says.

  I nod. We stand and stare up at the house and listen to the wind come through the palm fronds. I am holding a bag of celery in my hand.

  “I’ll miss this place,” I say. “Even more than the others.”

  “Me too.”

  “Time for the burn?”

  “Yes. You want to do it, or you want me to?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Henri pulls out his wallet and drops it on the ground. I pull out mine and do the same. He walks to our truck and comes back with passports, birth certificates, social security cards, checkbooks, credit cards and bank cards, and drops them on the ground. All of the documents and materials related to our identities here, all of them forged and manufactured. I grab from the truck a small gas can we keep for emergencies. I pour the gas over the small pile. My current name is Daniel Jones. My story is that I grew up in California and moved here because of my dad’s job as a computer programmer. Daniel Jones is about to disappear. I light a match and drop it, and the pile ignites. Another one of my lives, gone. As we always do, Henri and I stand and watch the fire. Bye, Daniel, I think, it was nice knowing you. When the fire burns down, Henri looks over at me.